N.Y. Vehicle & Traffic Law § 1620: Speed limits on state highways, and on Indian reservations

§ 1620. Speed limits on state highways, and on Indian reservations.

(a) The department of transportation with respect to state highways

maintained by the state outside of cities having a population in excess

of one million, and highways on Indian reservations, may by order, rule

or regulation establish higher or lower maximum speed limits at which

vehicles may proceed on or along such highways than the fifty-five miles

per hour statutory maximum speed limit. No such maximum speed limit

shall be established at less than twenty-five miles per hour, except

that school speed limits may be established at not less than fifteen

miles per hour, for a distance not to exceed one thousand three hundred

twenty feet, on a highway passing a school building, entrance or exit of

a school abutting on the highway. Absence of signs installed pursuant to

this section shall be presumptive evidence that the department of

transportation has not established a higher maximum speed limit than the

fifty-five miles per hour statutory limit.

(b) The department of transportation, whenever it determines on the

basis of an engineering and traffic investigation that slow speeds on

any part of a controlled-access state highway maintained by the state

outside of cities having a population in excess of one million

consistently impede the normal and reasonable flow of traffic, may

establish minimum speed limits below which vehicles may not proceed on

or along such highway,

(c) The department of transportation may determine the maximum speed

which may be maintained without structural damage to bridges and

elevated structures that are a part of any state highway maintained by

the state, and, if such maximum speed is lower than the maximum speed

limit otherwise applicable, may by order, rule or regulation establish

such lower maximum speed limit at which vehicles may proceed on any such

bridge or structure.